Austrian rebel priests told to renounce manifesto or lose jobs

Irish Times
June 28, 2012

THE CATHOLIC Church in Austria has laid down the law to its rebel priests by telling them they cannot support a reform manifesto criticised by Pope Benedict and stay in an administrative post.

One priest said he had already stepped down from the post of deacon rather than renounce the Call to Disobedience manifesto, that challenges church teaching on topics such as women’s ordination and offering Communion to non-Catholics.

Another priest had withdrawn his support for the campaign and kept his job, a church spokesman said yesterday, while two or three more had yet to decide.

The manifesto’s demands, which issue from a reform group called Priests’ Initiative, have been echoed by some Catholic groups and clerics in Germany, Ireland, Belgium and the United States.

“You can easily remain a member of the Priests’ Initiative. You must only distance yourself from the Call to Disobedience in an appropriate way,” said church spokesman Nikolaus Haselsteiner.

“In an average company, a department head can’t say he doesn’t care what the CEO says.”

The Vienna archdiocese said yesterday that its head, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, had told priests last month he would not appoint manifesto supporters to the post of dean and those coming up for renewal in the post would also be forced to choose.

Cardinal Schönborn, a close ally of Pope Benedict, has met the rebel priests, including their leader Father Helmut Schüller. However Tuesday’s announcement was the first sign he was reining them in.

Fr Schüller says his group represents 10 per cent of the Austrian clergy. The group has won broad public backing in opinion polls for its pledge to break church rules by giving Communion to Protestants and divorced Catholics who have remarried.

Austrian Catholics have for decades challenged the conservative policies of Pope Benedict and his predecessor, Pope John Paul, creating protest movements and advocating changes – such as ordination of women and the abolition of clerical celibacy – that the Vatican firmly rejects.

Pope Benedict responded in April by restating the church’s ban on women priests and saying he would not put up with revolt from clerics and lay people.